


venting

by eternalsession



Category: Original Work
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-28
Updated: 2020-02-05
Packaged: 2021-02-27 06:15:30
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,948
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22442425
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eternalsession/pseuds/eternalsession
Kudos: 4





	1. cypress

It’s funny how we all take inspiration from different things. Sometimes things that aren’t meant to inspire people, or things that are meant to be taken literally, can find new meaning from person to person. Often, people who love to find fault with things point out that their literature teachers in high school are looking too deep into a text and finding meaning that isn’t there. While I don’t think it’s unreasonable to say to a high school teacher to relax, especially when those people aren’t passionate about literature, what we find meaning in is not up to the author. What inspires us is not something the author can force. Even if the meaning wasn’t intentional, if it comes through to someone, if someone can take something from our words, that’s with them now. It’s made its impact.

It’s no secret that I’m… in a sense, “going through it”. Some words that I usually wouldn’t think about surface in my mind from time to time. Sometimes I think about song lyrics and what they mean to me. How I can use them for my situation, to in some ways cope, and in others, force a connection. I do not make this up, because it’s embarrassing to even admit, but I was listening to fucking aquatic mine the other day and the singer (rapping as knuckles) said he was “in narrow hallways running like it’s a ballgame,” and “in a maze and I don’t know what to do” and those lyrics definitely hit me hard, in a different way. It was obviously meant to just be music for the stage, and he was being literal but something about it resonated with me.

I’ve been trapped within the corridors of my mind, in a sense. It’s a maze that I can’t escape. I can sometimes forget about it, go do other things, what-have-you, but when I start thinking about it again I’m back in the maze. I don’t know how to solve it, and I don’t know how to get out. Maybe it’s just an example of a wound only time can heal.

There are times when it kicks into high gear and it just takes so much energy to do basic things. To get up and eat, to go to sleep, to get some more water. A week ago I was over the moon. I felt like I was finally starting to put the pieces together. I was creating my identity, brick by brick. I was—er, I still am—a girl. I was happy about that. Excited. I wanted to give myself more time to marinate in that identity. I wanted to tell my dad about it when I felt certain about it. Funnily enough, he passed the same day I felt strongly enough about it. Now it’s hard to even think about it.

I had so much momentum going there. How do we define ourselves? How do we stand in the face of adversity? When the going gets tough, do we get going? What am I supposed to do in a situation like this? Is it okay to just be sad? To just lay around for a day, doing nothing, wallowing in my own feelings of… whatever they are? What does that do for me? What does it accomplish?

I have so many questions that just go unanswered. I have no doubt some people would tell me that, yes, it’s okay to just be sad. Yes, it’s okay to spend that time for yourself. It’s good to have friends that support you. Without my friends’ support I would have stayed the same for probably my whole life. I wouldn’t have realized so much about myself. The more important part about your friends supporting you is that you always have that safety net. It’s… a bit of an unusual feeling. Having free reign to do what I want and having people tell me they’re down for me anyway. Being reassured that I’m not worthless.

I don’t.

I don’t want to lay around all day feeling sorry for myself. I don’t want to say “oh, woe is me, boo hoo, my dad is dead, wah.” I know I could. And some people do. I don’t mean to demean anyone else’s experience. But this is the mindset that my dad gave me when I was young: I can sit around and cry about it, or I can do something about it. I do realize the value of crying, how it can be a good stress reliever. But even that much is an action that I could choose to take on purpose. If I just lay around all day and do nothing, then weeks go by and I’m missing schoolwork, and so on—what am I doing?

When I was young I remember cutting my finger trying to separate some hotdogs and running to the bathroom crying and screaming. After a while, I realized that it… didn’t really hurt. I was just crying because that’s what I was supposed to do. That was just my first reaction. I remember that so vividly because that was one of my defining moments as a kid. I stopped crying, I cleaned up the cut, then I went to go finish separating those hotdogs—carefully.

I carry that with me. That’s part of who I am. I don’t sit and wallow, I don’t throw myself any more pity parties. What’s done is done. I can’t bring him back. I can’t talk to him again. I can dream of him, sure, but not on purpose. No amount of crying and begging and weeping with change my situation. The only thing I can do is what I can do. I don’t need to worry about what I can’t do. That’s how I rationalized since I got the news.

But it still hurts. It hurts so goddamn much. It was like he was a part of me that I suddenly lost; like a void opened in my heart and occasionally sucks the color out of my life. Where I’m sometimes like “can all of you people stop enjoying yourselves and realize that I am fucking in pain and grieve with me for just a moment?”

That is, of course, a selfish and intrusive thought. I don’t want anyone to grieve with me. With whatever people enjoy, I want them to enjoy that to the fullest extent they can, while they can. To say they love you to that person, to admit they have that crush on someone, to let their friends know they’re appreciated. Because one day they’re here, and the next they’re gone. Forever.

I’m 21 and I have to bury my father. My brother is 17 and he has to bury his father. Seventeen. He didn’t get to show up to either of our graduations and yet he was trying so hard to make it to his. He was making so much progress. And then he just perished. Gone with the wind.

I kept it inside at first because I didn’t want people to see, to know. I didn’t want to be perceived as someone who needs help. I didn’t want special treatment, and I didn’t want people to try and reach out to me. I didn’t want things to be weird and awkward, for people to feel like they have to approach me differently. I wanted to make it seem like everything is fine.

But everything is not fine! None of it is fine at all! There are days when my mood swings from happy to sad to angry and back to happy again in the span of three hours. I feel like I did when I was in high school all over again.

I said earlier that this might have been a wound that only time can heal. And I know how emotional wounds can open up again randomly and force you to re-grieve. I know that this will not get any better the more I rationalize it. And so I write. I write to give myself room to express myself in the medium that I can handle best. The medium that he suggested I give a try in high school that became my biggest passion to this day, that I decided to major in in college. And it’s getting better, bit by bit. I’m getting better. Everything will be okay.

I love you, dad. Rest in peace.


	2. Chapter 2

“Why do I say things I don’t really mean?”

This is a sentence I’ve always connected with. I’ve always found myself tongue tied and made things harder for myself. As I grow older I become increasingly more attached to songs and the lyrics they contain. When I was younger, I used to hate poetry. I was too immature to really understand it. Analyzing every word of a poem isn’t a fun assignment, especially when you don’t believe what you’re saying, for my defense, but I did let that jade my view. Now I find it so meaningful. Every sentence doesn’t have to connect. It doesn’t have to tell a story. You can just say one thought and move on to the next.

“Some nights I wish that my lips could build a castle; some nights I wish they’d just fall off.”

These two just strike a chord with me. I can never express myself properly, and when I try it’s just like sand slipping through my fingers. Sand being both literal and figurative, as it seems it’s always an issue I have to just let time heal. Having that presence of mind to know when to step back and just try again later, or perhaps never again. And even when I do realize that I just need to let it sit, it still doesn’t feel right.

Which is, of course, the part that I cannot stand about me the most. I just sit up there, hurt someone’s feelings, then feel bad about myself for some time. And I can’t control it! I wish I could just detach myself and tell myself that I’m the party least affected by the stupid shit that I accidentally say, but it just makes my heart so heavy knowing that I hurt someone’s feelings, especially someone I care about. Especially if I know they care about me.

Like what am I doing? What’s the point? How do I even express this sadness without making it seem like it’s about me? Where do I tell someone that I’m sad that I did something to offend? It doesn’t even make any sense. It’s just this weight that you have to carry so you don’t end up looking even worse. Even dumber. Even meaner.

It always happens. I always invariably end up saying something stupid to people I care about. One little mishap, one little slip up. I think about them all the time. I wonder if I’m secretly resented for making a little mistake. I wonder if people are just putting up with me and would be better off without me. Not to hint at anything foolish, but maybe I would at least be better off alone.

Am I fun to be around? Do I just drone on and on and on about myself when people don’t really care? Do I overshare, thinking myself to be wanted?

Am I even wanted?

Of course, these are all certainly intrusive thoughts. I don’t want to be alone anyway. If I tried it, I’m sure I’d be back in a day. I don’t talk to anyone else. I don’t go outside. I don’t have many hobbies.

Even still, though. If I’m just a force of destruction, I at least know better than to bring people down.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> just ftr im good but i decided to post this anyway


End file.
